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Workers make a killing on cleanup

City garbage workers who worked on Friday, Saturday and Sunday have already earned back 21 per cent of the wages they lost during the strike in overtime, with more to come this week.

Bart Brassard, 47, grimaces after getting a face full of dust from a bag that appeared to contain construction debris. The resumption of garbage pickup after the municipal strike brought stockpiles of trash to city curbs. (Aug. 4, 2009) (JIM RANKIN / TORONTO STAR)

By Nicole BauteStaff reporter

Thu., Aug. 6, 2009

City garbage workers who worked on Friday, Saturday and Sunday have already earned back 21 per cent of the wages they lost during the strike in overtime, with more to come this week.

The city paid hundreds of employees overtime to clean up the city's 26 reeking temporary dumps over the weekend. Many staff were regular garbage workers, but other employees came from the city's water, transportation and fleet divisions.

While Toronto has decided to pay overtime wages – approximately $475,000 during the weekend cleanup alone – Windsor city council took another route.

In Windsor, where garbage collection resumed last week after a 101-day strike, council decided that overtime would not be paid despite the massive piles of trash needing to be picked up. It will take longer, but cost less.

Geoff Rathbone, general manager of Toronto's Solid Waste Management Services Division, said 550 people each logged 13 hours of overtime on Saturday, and a smaller crew of 380 worked 12 hours overtime on Sunday. When hours from Friday and Monday are also included, the overtime payout for the weekend cleanup tops $475,000.

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That means one garbage worker, who would have lost about $5,800 in wages during the strike, could have earned back $1,225 on the weekend, or some 21 per cent, before returning to work on Tuesday to log more overtime hours.

Because of the tremendous volume of trash being hauled to the curb, the city is using 20 per cent more trucks (employing those normally used for yard waste) and allowing for a roughly 20 per cent longer work day, Rathbone said.

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 34, Don Valley East) said overtime should not have been allowed after city residents were dragged through a gruelling strike of almost six weeks.

"It serves as an incentive and an encouragement to go on strike," he said. "Torontonians are angry that the city settled and don't believe that overtime should be allowed."

Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker (Ward 38, Scarborough Centre), however, said the overtime hours are completely reasonable and that the "vile, stinking piles" at the temporary dumps needed to be cleaned up "as fast as humanly possible."

Under the return-to-work protocol, the choice of whether to contract out the cleanup operation or use city workers was left up to the solid waste division.

"It's always a balance between getting things done quickly and managing the expenses, which include overtime," Rathbone said.

He said paying city staff to do the dirty work turned out to be much more affordable than hiring contractors. Because of a certificate issued by the Ministry of the Environment, the city was obliged to start the cleanup of temporary dump sites no more than 24 hours after city council voted to officially end the strike – which meant it had to happen over the weekend.

Minnan-Wong said Toronto could have saved money by signing the agreement at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, which would have avoided the need to work through the weekend.

Rathbone said the city's 400 garbage collectors worked an average of two hours of overtime both yesterday and Tuesday. He said overtime hours would vary by crew and route in the days to come.

Estimates suggested it would cost up to 70 per cent more for the city to hire private contractors to clean up the temporary dumps, Rathbone said, because they have to rent equipment, pay their own employees overtime and, unlike the city, make a profit.

Rathbone said using a city waste truck with two workers costs $91 per hour in regular time and $117 per hour in overtime. That figure would have risen to at least $157 and $189 if private crews were used to clean up the dumps.

As to regular home collection, there were two options, Rathbone said.

"One is to try to keep up each day and finish each day as much as possible. Alternatively, we could start to fall behind after just the first day," which would create a backlog spilling over into the weekend and leaving garbage on the streets.

"Ultimately, we believe you would have to work the overtime to clear that material," Rathbone said.

"Is it better to clear it as you go along, or is it better to clear it in a large block at some later date? And we believe it's better to clear it as you go along."

Windsor took a different tack.

Dev Tyagi, Windsor's general manager of public works, said the city is now about three days behind in its regular collection because garbage collectors are not working overtime, which means some bags of garbage have been sitting on the curb for days.

But he said residents have been patient: "The public has said they prefer to live with the inconvenience rather than pay the overtime."

Windsor's three temporary dump sites were cleaned up within a few hours because garbage was being thrown into containers that were emptied throughout the strike, Tyagi said.

In Toronto, where garbage collectors were hauling heavy loads yesterday, one city employee who gave his name as Tim said the weekend overtime didn't even put a dent into the wages he lost during the strike – three paycheques' worth.

"I'm into my savings," he said.

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